Sermon - Christmas and Exodus

Preached on July 26, 2009 at The First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.
Exodus 1:22–2:10
Matthew 2:13-21

Dedicated to my parents; and always to the glory of God.

Introduction:
Once, when I was discussing with a group of students the stories of Moses and Jesus, a young girl spoke up to ask the question “were Moses and Jesus friends?” I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I did explain that although they lived centuries apart, hers was a good question because their stories have so much in common. Both were born at a time of hardship for their people, the Jews were enslaved in Egypt at the time of Moses and occupied by the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus. Both were seen as threats by the ruler at the time of their birth – Pharaoh in Egypt and King Herod in Israel – and these rulers tried to protect their power by having all baby boys murdered. However, thanks to the work of God in the lives of some courageous people, both Moses and Jesus survived the infanticide, and grew up to grant freedom to their people.

The story of Exodus is a song that the people of Israel have always known by heart, so it is important for us to recognize how the gospel according to Matthew uses the melody of the Exodus story to tell the Christmas story of Jesus. Matthew’s story is rich in symbolic meaning, carefully chosen and beautifully written in order to proclaim the truth about Jesus Christ. Today, I want to listen carefully to this Christmas story, so that we might hear the truth for which this gospel was written.

Prayer: Gracious God, who sent your son Jesus into the world so that you might free us from our bonds and reconcile all the world to you, give us the ears to hear and the heart to understand the grace that you bestow in Jesus Christ.

Ever since it hit the silver screen in 1939, it seems that every generation has grown up with The Wizard of Oz. I wonder if you can remember with me the very beginning, when that MGM lion first appears, and gives its famous roar. And then the orchestra begins to play and the screen goes to a scene of sky and clouds in sepia tones and in grand letters, the credits appear: “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents” – “The Wizard of Oz” – “A Victor Fleming Production.” As the credits for cast, writing, music, and the rest are displayed, the orchestra continues to play the overture, which features those famous melodies of the important songs that will soon tell our story. As the credits roll, we hear “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead,” and “The Merry Old Land of Oz.” The overture functions as a kind of a overview of all the major themes of the story to follow, and by the time the camera opens on Dorothy and Toto running along the dirt road in Kansas, you are immersed in that magical world.

So it is with the Christmas story in Matthew, and also the one in Luke, which we’ll leave for another day. The Christmas story is an overture which previews the major themes in this gospel written to proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ.

The first theme that Matthew’s gospel proclaims is that Jesus is the Son of God, who comes to us as a new Moses. If you want to understand the work of Jesus, think of him as a new Moses, who was rescued as a baby, and came up from Egypt, only this time it was not to save his people from slavery in Egypt, but to save all people from slavery in sin. Remember that sin is anything that separates us from God, so Jesus is the one who frees us from that which separates us from God, delivering us from slavery to freedom. Matthew will continue this theme later in the gospel, for instance in the sermon on the mount, which reminds us of Moses on Mount Sinai receiving the ten commandments – the law which would guide the lives of this newly freed nation. So Jesus is also on a mountain, and his sermon on the mount is the giving of a new law. That’s why he keeps saying things like “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” This is a new law from a new mountain to people who are newly freed from sin.

So, why would Matthew want us to think that Jesus was the new Moses? For one thing, this gives people somewhere to start. Matthew is writing at the end of the first century to a lot of people who have barely heard about Jesus, if at all. They didn’t grow up with Christmas and Easter, they didn’t have the Nicene Creed, or the hymn “Amazing Grace” or the paintings of Rembrandt. They had no ideas about Jesus, so Matthew gave them Moses as a starting point. To say that Jesus is like Moses is to proclaim that, in Jesus, the same God who brought our people out of Egypt is at work again. There is a sense of connection to the past. To say that Jesus is the new Moses is to proclaim that, in Jesus, our journey from slavery to freedom in God is made complete. Whereas Moses brought the Israelites to an outward freedom, Jesus frees the entire world from the inside out.

2. The second theme in Matthew’s gospel, which is played in the overture of the Christmas story, is that we have a choice about how to respond to Jesus. Will we respond like King Herod and the religious leaders around him, or will we respond like the wise men, the magi, who came from far away to adore Jesus? Herod had been placed in charge of Israel by the Roman Empire. He ruled the Jews, and in turn, he was ruled by Rome. It wasn’t as good as being emperor, but it was as highly placed as he was likely to get in life. His position was privileged and powerful, and many of Jerusalem’s leaders got close to him, so that some privilege and power would flow to them. These are the people who reject Jesus. When the wise men come west, they explain that they have come to visit the newborn king of the Jews, whose star they have seen, and to ask where they might find him. But King Herod and his court are not impressed, heavenly sign or not. King Herod sees it as a threat. If this kid wants to be king, then he is a threat to Herod.

Faith in Christ means that we make God king of our lives instead of ourselves. For us to give up being ruler of our own little kingdoms means that we give up making our own success, profit, or security the highest good. The idea of me first is actually one of the sins that Jesus comes to free us from. And it is freeing, to know we have all we need from God without demanding more and more for ourselves at the expense of others. For Matthew, King Herod is a preview of how the rich and powerful will reject Jesus when he begins his ministry as an adult. King Herod is a preview of the important theme that the more we have going for us, the harder it will be for us to see how enslaved we are to everything that we have going for us. Success is a blinder and a hindrance in the upside-down view of the gospel in which the last are first and the first are last.

The other response we can make to Jesus is that of the wise men: adoration, honor, trust, and faith. They make a long journey, just as many of us may make a long journey to giving our ultimate trust to God. And the wise men come from a foreign land. Here is another preview of the gospel, in which Jesus will most often attract those who are outside the borders of society: tax collectors, sinners, the poor and powerless, the broken and dispossessed. Why is it that the ones who have the least going for them have the easiest time putting faith in God? I’ll bet you have answers to that question.

We all have the capacity to be either King Herod or one of the magi. Like King Herod, we can insist that the most important thing is me, not realizing that all the messages which reinforce that self-centered message are really the chains of slavery from which we need so desperately to be freed. These chains keep us from receiving God’s grace, keep us from receiving help from one another, and keep us from a true embrace of love.

Or we can be like the magi, beginning a journey of faith that will take us in directions as yet unknown, to meet new people, to have new experiences. Let me close by telling you about one person who made such a choice. In her memoir Take This Bread, Sara Miles describes how one day, at the age of 46 with no prior religious practice or belief, she entered a church and received communion, and it changed her life. She felt called to the ministry of feeding the hungry, organizing free meals and food giveaways in the church where she first shared that communion meal, and then in places around her city. Like the magi, hers was a long journey, in which she met “thieves, child abusers, millionaires, day laborers, politicians, schizophrenics, gangsters, and bishops,” she wrote, “all blown into my life through the restless power of a call to fed people, widening what I though of as my ‘community’ in ways that were exhilarating, confusing, often scary.”

She made the journey of the magi. She was made free by the grace and power of Jesus Christ, and so can we. There is so much to celebrate at the season of Christmas. The birth of Jesus is the summit of God’s generosity, and it inspires our own generosity of cheer, good will, and gifts to those we love and those in need. But I also like this opportunity for Christmas at a strange time of year, because it reminds me that these Christmas stories are about more than the birth of Jesus. These stories are about the man he would become, the freedom he would bring, and the invitation he would make for our lives to be made new.

Summer is the time when many of us find those treasured days of downtime, and one of the things I most treasure is the time to get into some great books. If that’s the case for you, then allow me to recommend a little summer reading (and several of these are available for loan in our church library). I welcome conversation on any of these books, and your own summer reading or all-time favorites. Happy Reading.

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. This is a wonderful novel, told in a series of letters written by an aging Congregational minister in a small Iowa town. His reflections on Christian faith, family, and forgiveness are profound.

The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming, by Henri J.M. Nouwen. A Catholic priest and professor of psychology plumbs the depth of one of the greatest parables. Using Rembrandt’s painting of the parable’s reunion scene as a guide, Nouwen reflects on how each character reveals something about Christ and about us.

Atticus, by Ron Hansen. In this novel, the parable of the prodigal son provides the rough outline for the story of a modern Colorado rancher whose younger son goes missing in Mexico. It is part mystery, and part parable about the dedicated love of a father for his son.

If Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person, by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland. Co-written by two ministers who describe the wideness of God’s grace in a way that you may not have considered before. Although the book may challenge you, it is written with such honesty, humor, and graciousness that it is easy to consider them good friends.

On my summer list for 2009…

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. I started this years ago, and picked it up again this spring. Almost finished, but I want to savor it.

Home, by Marilynne Robinson, the new companion novel to Gilead.

Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, by Sara Miles. This is the memoir of a non-religious person who happened upon a church one day, received communion, and found her life changed by the simplicity and generosity of this gift of food. This moment led her to an active ministry of feeding the hungry in her new church and across her city.

A People’s History of Christianity, by Diana Butler Bass. Originally this was to be called "After Jesus: How Christians Loved God and Neighbor Through Church History."